STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The aim of the annual ceremony held for the 20th time today in the small Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park was to make sure that the 84 Staten
Islanders killed in Vietnam are never forgotten.

Judging by the crowd of well over 200 people in Castleton Corners, the Honor
Guard of the Thomas J. Tori Chapter, Vietnam Veterans of America, is succeeding
in its mission, even two decades after it began.

"This is an ongoing mission that will never be completed,"
Honor Guard Captain Nicky Castoro told the standing-room-only crowd.

Family members placed flowers alongside the memorial to the
borough's 84 killed or missing in action in Vietnam, and the ceremony included
a somber reading of each of the names, followed by the ringing of a
silver bell for each one. New this year, the faces of those killed -- most of
them young and smiling -- adorned the fence surrounding the small memorial park.

Chapter President Gene DiGiacomo praised his first vice
president, Danny Ingellis, for taking on the task of finding the photographs of
the 84 men and placing them in the park, even though the task was logistically
difficult.

"He kept his promise," DiGiacomo said.

DiGiacomo told the crowd he had read and heard of many
mothers -- including his own -- who wondered why their children never wrote home
from Vietnam about the war, focusing instead on things like the weather. It was
because they were no longer the boy their family once knew, DiGiacomo said,
but soldiers. They could not imagine writing home about the awful things they
were experiencing, he said.

"He couldn't share those things with you, the ones he loved,
because he didn't want you to worry," DiGiacomo said. "But above all, it was
his duty as a soldier to shield you from the horrors of war."

The ceremony also included prayer, songs and reflections
from other veterans. Chaplain Dennis McLoone, master of ceremonies for the event,
offered a prayer from Rev. Lin McGee, national chaplain of the Blue Star
Mothers of America.

"Our heroes have gone on before us -- too young to go -- but
too brave to stay. Our hearts were set on our lives together, an eternity of
days, a future of tomorrows, yet, day is done," he read.

Castoro, in his closing remarks, said the stone monument
behind him, and ones made of granite and marble all across the country, were
not the true legacy of fallen members of the military.

"Their true monuments are our freedoms, the American way of
life," he said.

DiGiacomo said it was important to honor those who had died,
and that the annual ceremony is especially important to their family members,
who turn out in droves each year. Among them yesterday were Madeline and
Raymond Flynn Sr., whose son Raymond Jr. was killed in Vietnam. His body was
brought home by his brother, Mrs. Flynn said, who was serving with the Navy
during the conflict.

"It was very moving," Flynn, a World War II veteran himself,
said. "I'm glad they remembered all of the soldiers gone before them."